


All you know (all you need to know)

by lakester



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lakester/pseuds/lakester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cory was always going to marry Topanga Lawrence. Cory was always going to know Shawn Hunter. Cory was always going to love them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All you know (all you need to know)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lempo Soi (Lemposoi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemposoi/gifts).



Cory was always going to marry Topanga Lawrence. Cory was always going to know Shawn Hunter. Cory was always going to love them both.

\---

Topanga liked plans. Not like Cory liked plans; this was true, but then there were very few people who were quite that adorably stubborn and stubbornly adorable. She liked finding things out.

When she was four that had meant trying to push a crayon in her ear after Bethany had told her it would turn her eyes pink.

Bethany wasn't invited to her fifth birthday party.

At twenty-four it meant reading books that sounded like the offspring of a self-help guide and a cookery book, and Topanga drew the line at julienning anything that wasn't dead or a vegetable already.

Little Topanga had lost her crayon and seen Cory cry. She hadn't liked that then, and twenty years hadn't changed her that much; she wanted to be happy, it was important that Cory be happy, and Shawn too.

\---

The hood of the blue Ford was propped up, the driver hunched over something that Topanga was going to guess was the engine, and poking disconsolately at the radiator caps. The road stretched out ahead of them, empty and hazy in the sunlight, and dust kicked up as she walked up to the car.

She knocked on the car roof and it resounded metallicly.

“Hey,” Shaun nodded without looking up. “I think one of her cylinders has gone.” He ran a hand slowly over the side of the car and sighed, clicking the hood back down.

“Can you fix it?” Topanga asked. The message Shawn had left had been rambling and talking at angles before he'd said where he was if not what wrong. Cory might have had better luck translating Shawn-speak into English, but he'd still been knee deep in archives at work.

Shawn was looking at her thoughtfully. Topanga could see the moment a thought slid in to place. He slouched against the car, one corner of his shirt pulling free, and a cocky grin on his face as he said, “I think I might have to play hitch-hiker on this one,” and leant back, one arm on the roof and flicking up a thumb.

“But if the kind lady motorist would give me a lift back to her place. I could make it worth her while--” He flicked a gaze over Topanga, eyes trailing over her body with a grin.

Topanga ignored the flush that started in her stomach and sparked outwards. It still felt a little off to do this without Cory being there, or watching, or on the phone in the room next door trying to order pizza.

“Do you really think you still need lines with me?” She tapped Shawn on the chest. “I already like you, Shawn.”

“I know,” Shawn said, trying another grin that warmed Topanga's toes. “I like you too.” Topanga pulled open her passenger side door and cocked her head before sliding into the driver's seat.

“But this is a little-” Topanga waved a hand. “Weird. For you too?”

Shawn tossed his carry-case onto the back-seat and pulled the door shut, stretching into place and said, “I think. Maybe.” He stared at the radio, as if the dials had all the answers he needed.

“I think, it's how I relate to people, always have.”

“You never used to, with me?” Topanga wished she'd thought to move the goldfish air-freshener that bobbed, happily and bright yellow from the rear-view mirror.

“You were always Cory's,” Shawn said simply.

“And now you are too.”

“No, I always was.” Shawn looked up from the fascination that was his folded hand and turned to Topanga, “You, I'm not sure who we are without him, so I fall back on old habits. And that - guys and girls; it's how I get them.”

“Is it how you got Cory?” Topanga asked.

“You want to fall into a llama pit so I can rescue you?”

“If we have to.” Topanga smiled at him. “But you know that's not how you got Cory. It's how you started. You were his friend for years. You were mine too.”

“Were?”

“You were,” Topanga leaned across and briefly kissed him. “You still are. Because I don't want to lose that. Now let's go.”

Topanga's little Toyota turned left at the intersection. Shawn turned in his seat, looking south.

“Aren't we going the wrong way?”

“No. Here,” Topanga thumbed her cell phone out of her jeans pocket. “Call Cory. Tell him we're going to find some penguins.”

“Penguins,” Shawn said, and Topanga was impressed he managed that without sounding completely like he was doubting her sanity.

“Or flamingos,” Topanga said. “But penguins are better. And either I can rescue you, or you can play my knight in shining armour.”

\---

It was never the right time to go.

If Shawn had been sensible he would have walked away years ago. But whenever he tried, and he hadn't ever tried that hard, either he walked in circles or Cory walked after him and he found he hadn't got the nerve to run.

He graduated high school and Cory was at college with him. He graduated college and went to Europe and Cory called him back, “Me and Topanga miss you. When are you coming home?” and he went.

He really liked Topanga, he more than liked Cory, and he liked who he was with them.

In the end, he was just way too selfish to give that up.

\---

The house creaked, and at three o'clock in the morning the lone street light whose valiant fight against the forces of darkness – or, okay, night – usually only lit a few feet around its base in a dusky yellow halogen glow had a nightly moment of triumph. The light bounced a complicated path off two walls, one mail box, the Stokes children's slide and an otherwise idle ornamental sundial to hit Cory Matthews right between the eyes.

He'd tried sleeping in another room; the light still got him, ricocheted off Shawn's bike chained to the porch. He put up blackout curtains, they fell down. He put on a blindfold, he fell down.

And the whole contraption of mirror and lenses they managed to jury-rig outside the bedroom window – well the less said the better. Nobody in their street had really needed electricity that day, and eventually Topanga found the fun of pointing out who exactly was the only one to end up without hair that stuck out like a startled hedgehog got to be less immediately entertaining.

The pictures though, taped in pride of place on the fridge door, they were never not going to be funny.

Tonight, though, instead of grunting, rolling over and squashing anyone in the immediate vicinity with one of those extra limbs Topanga and Shawn agreed Cory must develop in his sleep – one time, a guy tries to get up and ends up tangled and falling out of bed, one time – Cory woke up. And blinked. It was dark enough that nothing looked familiar, but light enough to carve shapes into shadows, and Cory thought he heard a thump.

It sounded too big a noise to be the house settling, and unless the normally quiet in the small hours of the morning traffic had decided to scrabble against the side of the building then it wasn't that either.

In fact, “Topanga,” Cory hissed, “I think we're being burgled.”

When that statement failed to get a sufficiently worried response, he shuffled round and gave a wary poke at the outline of the other figure just about visible in the nest of blankets. “Topanga!”

“No, clown, no!” And a flailing arm almost caught the side of Cory's head. It was followed out of the blankets by a rumpled mass of hair falling over bright and blinking eyes, and the rest of a face that Cory had been dreaming about waking up next to since they'd been toddlers and he'd watched Topanga suck her thumb through nap-time.

Topanga scrubbed still sleep-encrusted eyes, as she asked, “Cory?”

“Burglars!” Possibly with striped jumpers and bags, each with a a dollar sign on the side. Definitely outside and trying to get in.

Topanga tilted her head, listening, and leaned against Cory's side. “I can't hear anything.” She paused, and the sounds Cory had heard stubbornly refused to repeat themselves. “Are you sure it's not squirrels?”

“I know what a squirrel sounds like.” Squirrels were had cute, fluffy tails and oversized teeth and eyes that looked at you and were downright off-putting when the three of you were trying to have a little private time and the wildlife insisted on staring. “I don't think he's looking for his nuts.”

“You're right,” Topanga agreed. Finally. “Squirrels aren't nocturnal. It might be a koala.” The window rattled. “Or not.”

“Shouldn't we be doing something?” Topanga asked, leaning over and stretching out for the light-switch above Cory's head.

He caught her arm, before she reached it. “We can't turn the light on!”

“We can't turn the light on, because?”

“Because the light switch is broken?” Cory tried. It didn't sound very plausible, even from his side of the lie.

“Try again,” Topanga said, curling up against his side, where Cory could feel the curve of her smile against his neck.

“Because you're all the light I need to see by?”

“That is so sweet,” Topanga said, hair tickling as she nuzzled him. “And I like that you said it, but that's not the reason you meant.”

“I-” The bedroom window scraunched open, and Cory had a moment of thanks for the interruption before his brain interjected a stream of flashing lights and warning klaxons.

If he'd been thinking properly he wouldn't have tackled the figure that slithered in through the gap above the window frame. He wouldn't have blanked out on what exactly he should do next, and most of all he would have recognised the figure beneath him before it'd said, “I thought you'd be pleased to see me, Cor, but could you at least wait until I'm in the house?”

“Shawn?” There was the clicking sound of a switch and the pre-dawn darkness was replaced by light. “Shawnie! It's you.”

“Yeah,” Shawn said. “Can you just move a little; I think my foot's stuck.”

Cory stepped back, and tugged at the heel of Shawn's left boot. It was caught at the corner and a couple of slivers of wood had snapped and wedged themselves at his ankle. He was pulling at the window bar as Shawn, on his back, propped on his elbows with one leg twisted up in the air and the other tucked up under his body, started, “Thought I could-” as his foot abruptly came loose and cut off what he was trying to say.

“Hey Topanga,” he said, looking over Cory's shoulder. “You weren't planning on hitting me with that, were you?”

“Not unless you're a koala.” Cory said, as Shawn stared at the non-sequitur.

“With this?” Topanga looked at the baseball bat in her right hand as if she'd never seen it before. Studied nonchalance whilst carrying a blunt instrument might not have been a look that worked on most people; it certainly wasn't working for Topanga, as she hurriedly passed it to Cory and offered a hand up to Shawn.

“Thanks,” Shawn answered with a curve of a smile. “Though I'm kinda disappointed you aren't jumping on top of me too.”

“Maybe later,” Topanga retorted, with a teasing lift of her eyebrow. “If you've been good.”

“Oh, I'm always very good; right, Cory?” Shawn drawled out the last few words as he glanced over at Cory. He put out an arm and tugged Cory closer. “I come highly recommended, don't I?”

Cory nodded, “Of late it's a small but very satisfied list of customers. I mean clients. Not that's I'm implying that you,” he made a complicated hand gesture.

“Yes, Cory.” Shawn eye-rolled at that, “It's only you. You and the happy shadow puppets.”

“I don't know,” Cory shook his head. “I always thought those puppets were creepy.”

“Puppets aren't creepy,” Shawn argued. “Now mime,” he started. “That's seriously-”

“Boys,” Topanga put in, hooking her fingers into the collar of Cory's pyjamas. “Bed.”

Cory looked at Shawn and shrugged. “I like it when a woman takes charge.” He started to take shuffling steps backwards.

“You mean you like it when Topanga does it,” Shawn said, a fond grin on his face.

“Yeah.” Cory reached back and switched the lights off, leaving Shawn silhouetted in the streaky fingers of not quite dawn.

“You too, Shawn Hunter.” Topanga called, slapping her hand down on the bed.

“Okay,” Shawn nodded in the shadows. “And remind me to get the people at number twenty-three an apology fruit basket again. I kinda got the wrong window the first time.”

\---

Cory kept the tape.

He didn't need to. It was burned on the back of his eyeballs. Also the eyeballs of the guy in the dorm room next door, which was kinda weird, so Cory didn't think about it.

He had Shawn and he had Topanga. And then they were all in New York and there were classes to transfer and a whole new city to explore and he still had Shawn and he still had Topanga.

Things didn't need to change. No-one needed to know that Cory still thought about watching Shawn and Topanga kiss. It was maybe the first secret he kept from everybody, from Shawn and Topanga and Eric and even Mr Feeny.

It turned out, though, that secrets and lies only worked when a guy had had considerably more practice at them than Cory.

He was just lucky that way.

\---

 _Cory was always going to marry Topanga Lawrence._

“Cory, I have something I want to ask you.”

“No.”

“You don't even know what it is yet.”

“No. I don't need to know. I don't want to know. No conversation that's good starts off like that. I'm heading the question off at the pass before you drive our conversational wagon off a cliff.”

“Cory, I think I want us to have a baby.”

“What, now? Topanga, that's not really the kind of thing you spring on a guy. That's not the kind of statement you just say without any warning.”

“How much?”

“How much what?”

“How much warning do you need?”

“I think it's usually about nine months? Unless you're an elephant and then I think it's sort of more like twelve or thirteen or...”

“Cory Matthews, are you calling me an elephant?”

“No? But if you were you'd be the smartest, prettiest elephant with the hottest trunk.”

“Wait, is my trunk my nose or my ass in this scenario?”

“I'm not sure, I think I got lost halfway through my metaphor. Shawn's really better at this than I am.”

 _Cory was always going to know Shawn Hunter._

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I thought I'd find you here.”

“Yeah, well. I like the water.”

“And it's right by the airport. Shawnie, you gotta stop running from sometime.”

“I'm still here, aren't I? Can't get away from you. You know, when we were in high school I had it all planned out.”

“You did?”

“You and Topanga were going to get married, live happily ever after, with a car and a house and three kids and a dog.”

“Three kids? I always thought we'd have just the two?”

“Nah, three. Two girls and a boy. And I was going to be the cool uncle who drops by every few months, calls all the kids by the wrong names and then I'm off on the road again.”

“So... you want to get a dog?”

“I do not want to get a dog. I'm just saying that's how I thought it'd be, so if you and Topanga want. I can do that. We had a good run, okay. And I mean, I love my dad, but good parenting doesn't exactly run in my family.”

“That's not going to happen, okay? Come on Shawn, we need to go home.”

“Still?”

“I think you owe Topanga flowers for running out like that, but yeah, I don't think she'll have changed the locks already. We're still us, nothing's gonna change that.”

 _Cory was always going to love them both._

“I'm just saying, have you seen the genes on this guy? The hair alone- and yours is great too, but do we really want our children to look like startled hedgehogs? I'd have his kids myself if it was, like, physically possible.”

“I have seen every inch of Shawn Hunter and then some, I just-”

“Hey guys, you do realise I'm right here?”

\---

The ceiling was very blue. Blue and speckled.

That wasn't normal. Normally, when Cory opened his eyes. It was a sort of pale yellow colour.

None of them liked it that much, but it had been three years since they moved to Boston and if they hadn't gotten round to changing it already then Cory hardly thought it was really fair of Topanga and Shawn to spring into action and commit a sudden midnight decorating spree without letting him know, or sticking a post-it note to the side of his head.

On the plus side that meant he hadn't had to lift any furniture, but then again, Shawn would have been the one to see Topanga's nose wrinkle up when paint got in her hair. On the whole Cory wished they would've woken him up, and only partly because in their stealth decorating they seemed to have stolen the bed and replaced it with cold grey tiles.

“Are you all right, Cory?” Topanga's voice only sounded a little bit worried, if farther away and louder than normal. She was standing up, and looking down at him over a striped jersey green shirt and...

“You have pretty ankles,” Cory told her. Because she did and she should know that. Probably she already did, but usually he didn't see them this close up, so he told her again.

“Do you think he hit his head?” Cory heard Topanga ask someone not him, someone that Cory couldn't make out at first. Not because he'd gone blind from the hitting of his head on account of the falling over, but because whoever it is was standing at just the right angle that all Cory's eyes could see was black shoes sticking out from blue jeans.

With all the grey walls and charts and what he sincerely hoped was not a real skeleton in the corner, it had started to work into Cory's head that this might not actually be their home. He really should stand up, it probably wasn't healthy, laid on the floor like he was.

“You're asking the wrong guy for that one, Topanga,” And it's Shawn. Of course it was. It's always Shawn. If Cory was to wake up on the moon Shawn would be there; helmet propped open, a casual yet cool slouch to his spacesuit. Right now, no-one was in space. Shawn was here, Cory was here – though not horizontal – and Topanga was here, as Shawn kept on talking to her. “I liked your ankles before anybody got concussed.”

“Come on, man. We don't wanna get the new doc confused.” Shawn ducked down on his heels and, arm outstretched, offered Cory a slightly calloused hand, and one of those looks that Cory was always the good kind of surprised to see and to realise that he didn't have to pretend wasn't there and making his heart lurch like back when they were kids. Perpetually surprised Cory; they'd probably put it on his gravestone.

The room looked a lot more like a doctor's office when he was standing up. The skeleton still looked creepy though. “Seriously, why old skeleton Pete hanging in the corner there? Are they trying to drum up for business?” It was just as well the skeleton didn't answer him, and probably equally fortunate that the room was empty of people who weren't used to the contents of Cory Matthews' brain exiting his mouth without having them overly checked for common sense.

“Honey, you're sure that you're okay?” Topanga frowned at him, and bit the corner of her lower lip. She lifted up the hand that wasn't holding his. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“What's your name, and who's the president of Nicaragua?” Shawn interjected, having retreated to perch on a desk by the window, as his legs swung loosely and he failed to hide behind a years-old copy of 'Designing Windows'.

“Do fingers count as thumbs?” And okay, it's not entirely that Cory meant to be difficult, just maybe thirty percent of him. The rest always wanted to be sure of what Topanga meant, so he could give her the right answer; it was the part of him that usually won.

“Cory.” Topanga could say his name fourteen different ways. This time she drew his name out like a bungee cord; this one was all about timing, whether Cory-on-the-end-of-the-rope bounced back higher and full of the fun adrenalin or plummeted to a messy splat.

Cory much preferred the first one of those, so he answered, “Two fingers and a thumb, and I love you?” he said, wrapping those fingers in his free hand, as he leant in to kiss her.

Topanga made a burbling happy sound that seemed to roll up her throat, and she was smiling as she pulled away. “Okay. But don't faint like that again. I worry.”

“You do?” Cory could feel the grin that pulled at his face.

“Sometimes.” Topanga said, an earnest look firmly fixed on her face. “Shawn and I take it in turns. There's even a schedule. It's colour coded.”

“Really?” That couldn't be true, not really?

“No, Cor,” Shawn said, and how did he move that quickly and quietly? Perhaps the photojournalism was just a cover and Shawn spent his time communing with secret agents and...

“Ow!”

Fortunately 'Designing Windows' was a lightweight publication, and Shawn had a good aim as he batted the magazine at Cory's hip. “You know we're always going to worry about you for as long as we love you, 'kay?”

“That goes both ways, you know? I love you too,” Cory answered, pulling Shawn into a hug and not letting go. “But did I ever know much about Nicaraguan politics?”

“Not much, or at all,” Shawn said gruffly in the vicinity of Cory's left ear, as Cory's skin felt all pink and tingly under the warmth of Shawn's breath.

He didn't pull away from the hug completely. The world's always felt more secure with Shawn's arm around him, and when Topanga, voice vibrating a little higher than usual, asked, “Are you ready this time, Cory?”

He answered “Yes,” punctuated by a nod that looked a lot more sure and steady than the butterfly cartwheels in his stomach.

Shawn's voice was light, but the grip he had on Cory twitched, and the attempted joke came out more strained with concern, “I think it's gotta be your turn to have the next freak-out, Topanga; Cory and I must have used up all of ours for the next – I don't know – fifteen years at least?”

“I don't freak out,” protested Topanga. Cory and Shawn's heads tilted at the same slightly sceptical angle that leant credence to the whole, shared brain theory she'd had in high school. And college. And last week.

“I don't. Much.” she repeated, and it was mostly true. Forms were simple straightforward things, that she could – and during law school had, once or twice – complete in her sleep; and if she'd argued because it should not have taken them three tries to fill them in because the form designers hadn't taken their combination of Lawrences, Matthews and Hunters into account. “I mean, I probably will, because this is big, but not yet.”

“Will be soon,” Shawn said, and tugged her over to stand between him and Cory.

“I know,” said Topanga, eyes on the display in front of them, blinking furiously. “We did that.”

“Yeah,” Cory breathed out. It was blue and green and a bit swirly, but there really was something there.

“Still conscious there, buddy?” Shawn checked.

“Yeah.”

“Remember to breathe this time, Cory,” Topanga warned him. Maybe they should have asked for a soft mat just in case. Or a padded helmet.

“I know we were trying, and we already sort of knew,” Cory said, staying a remarkably oxygenated shade of pink this time. “But we're having a baby, you guys, and I have no idea what to do next.”

“Neither do I,” Topanga quietly agreed.

“Ice cream,” Shawn offered, then tried to fill the silence. “Sorry. Right now that's all I got.”

“That's not true, Shawnie,” Cory said. “You've got us and we've got you.”

“Only now,” Topanga added, not letting go. “It's not just the three of us.”

\---

It's everything else that's complicated.

“Life is complicated, Mr Matthews. More specifically my life, since the day your family moved in next door.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I don't exactly have a lot of notes for this one, I just wanted somewhere to put this quote, so:
> 
> "You're my friend, Topanga, you're one of the two best people I know."  
> "Who's first?"  
> "He is. But you and me are the two best things in his life."  
> "Who's first?"  
> "You are." --- Torn Between Two Lovers (Feeling Like a Fool)


End file.
